The consumer desire for healthy skin has fueled the development of a host of skin care products. While the effectiveness and quality of these products has improved over time, the development of means for applying these products to the skin has lagged behind. Although the need for more advanced application techniques is present throughout the skin care industry, the need is felt most with regard to products that benefit from thorough application or exposure to the skin, such as skin exfoliators, moisturizers and the like.
Several systems have been introduced to facilitate the application of skin care products to the skin. One such system takes the form of a handheld motorized applicator with an application surface that comes into contact with the skin. A skin care product is placed on the applicator surface and the device is activated, causing the surface to vibrate. The product is applied upon contact of the vibrating surface with the skin. If the product is an exfoliator, the vibrating motion allows the abrasive product to rub against the skin and exfoliate the tissue. If the product is a moisturizer and the like, the vibrating surface rubs the moisturizer into the skin to enhance the moisturizing effect.
While these systems allow automated application of a skin care product, the actual application motion and technique is less than optimal. For instance, these conventional systems are limited in being able to adapt or adjust to the contours of the skin, such as when a product is applied over the face and chin. This is because the orientation of the application surface is fixed and the vibrations are limited only to motion along the plane of the surface. Furthermore, this vibration only incrementally increases contact with the skin and the user or subject must manually move the applicator across the skin and physically work the skin care product into the skin such as through massaging or rubbing the applicator surface onto the skin. In addition, the limited vibrational movement does not allow for thorough exposure and contact of the product to the skin.
Accordingly, improved skin care systems are needed that can overcome these disadvantages of the conventional systems.